Monday, August 11, 2014

Great Moments in Passive Journalism

This is about the Michael Brown murder a few days ago in Ferguson, MO and was written and posted by, to my eternal surprise (/sarcasm), the New York Times. If this sentence was any more passive, it would be wrapped in latex, have a ball gag and a safe word.
And, really, using the passive voice here and making it sound as if the gun seemingly went off all by itself in loving defense of its owner, shows just how passive the mainstream media is in reporting establishment violence. The sinecured moron who wrote this story was obviously parroting what the Ferguson Chief of Police said, proving right then and there that no serious investigation will be conducted into the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager coming back from a convenience store (stop me if this scenario seems familiar).
Granted, this clipping doesn't offer much in the way of context but, if we're as naive as a NY Times reporter to believe the police (note the mention of at least one other witness to the shooting, whom you can take on blind faith was not interviewed by the Times reporter), the kid just went crazy without being racially profiled and attacked a cop while going for his gun, where it then just magically went off all by itself, several times (specifically, ten times).
Now, the Ferguson police are literally closing ranks because a bunch of uppity darkies are outraged over this shooting and are having candlelight vigils. Organs such as the NY Times are reporting the crowds as being ugly and violent, with people screaming "Kill the cops!", forcing the poor, beleaguered PR-challenged men in blue to get out the tanks and attack dogs as if 2014 Ferguson, MO became 1964 Birmingham, Alabama.
And thanks to shiftless, sociopathic police departments run by equally shiftless and sociopathic chiefs and sheriffs who get to give their bullshit stories and unconditional defense of murder without challenge to a media that always finds some way to condone, justify, rationalize or ignore violence by the establishment, no murder of a black kid, however unjustified or egregious, is really completely without just cause. Leave it to the police department involved, the NRA, paranoid gun-clutchers and ignorant right wing bloggers on Hot Air and elsewhere to give us "the other side," in this case, Michael Brown acting completely out of character and grabbing a cop's gun.
In other words, it's the same smokescreen tactic used by defense attorneys such as George Zimmerman's that saw the late Trayvon Martin's name and reputation get dragged through the mud by the establishment and right wing press that saw guns Photoshopped into his hand and bullshit arguments that an armed hulk like Zimmerman had every right to racially profile a black kid who had the nerve to walk through a sundown town like Sanford. Oh, he tried to defend himself against an armed, much larger assailant?
Oh, then he definitely deserved to die, the little thug.
Folks, you don't need me to tell you we have the worst mainstream media on earth. Our newspapers are so bad, dead fish jump out of them because they don't want to be caught dead being near them. So, I'm going to give you a little Howard Beale action and tell you to turn off your TVs, turn off your radios, throw out those newspapers and magazines, cancel your subscriptions, shut off your cable, stick your head out the window and scream, "I'm mad as Hell and I'm not gonna take it, anymore!"
Or whatever the fuck you want. Whatever you say, let it be known to the police, the mainstream media, the government and whoever else is complicit in this constant justification of violence by the establishment, that you know they're complicit in this spiraling violence. Let them know that they're not the solution. They're the problem.